Are You Kidding?
Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
The New York Times continues to have Ezekiel Emanuel M.D., Provost of the University of Pennsylvania write a medical opinionator column.
It is no wonder the Times circulation has fallen to only 2 million readers. It is no longer the newspaper that prints “all the news that is fit to print.’
Malcolm Gladewell, in a critique of Steven Brill’s “Bitter Pill”, describes Ezekiel Emanuel as follows,
Emanuel was the “brashest” and most “academically credentialed of the trio of brilliant Emanuel brothers,” took “edgy” positions, and had an “MD and a PhD (in political philosophy) from Harvard, a master’s from Oxford, and a position teaching oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.”
He had “brains, cunning and [a] biting persona,” and was “ready, willing and able to layer it with the self-righteousness of a guy who treated cancer patients.”
He also does not give a straight answer when challenged.
In my opinion he des not understand either the healthcare system or the medical care system. He does not understand patients’ problems or needs.
Yet President Obama has used him as his medical care advisor for Obamacare. Two recent articles that he has written emphasize the above.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/
It must be read to be believed. No amount of commentary can describe this unbelievable argument. It left me speechless. It is a set up for government to ration medical care.
It also made me wonder how the President of the United States can permit Dr. Emanuel to be the spokesman for medical care in America. President Obama can only permit it if he agrees that government should control our freedom of choice.
“Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, last heard from claiming that he wants to die at 75 in order to avoid becoming a burden on society, writes in the New York Times that “screening healthy people who have no complaints is a pretty ineffective way to improve people’s health.”
He believes that government should control patients’ freedoms.
In an article he wrote that appeared in Lancet he stated; We evaluate eight simple allocation principles that can be classified into four categories: treating people equally, favoring the worst-off, maximizing total benefits, and promoting and rewarding social usefulness.
Dr. Emanuel is all about rationing care for individuals. He is all about the government telling individuals what care they are entitled to depending on their age and usefulness to society.
The second article that solidified my concept of this man was his article Skip Your Annual Physical.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/skip-your-annual-physical.html?_r=0
It should be read to understand his mission.
President Obama had built into Obamacare preventive services requirements. This resulted in at least 5 million people in the individual healthcare market losing their insurance and their doctors.
Obamacare mandates that Americans pay via new taxes and inflated health insurance premiums for services they do not need or they do not want. One ridiculous service would be birth control for the elderly.
Additionally the National Commission on Prevention Priorities found that by increasing just five preventive services, clinicians could save more than 100,000 lives per year. These services include breast cancer screening in women 40 and older, flu immunizations in adults 50 and over, colorectal cancer screening in adults 50 and over, smoking cessation counseling, and a daily aspirin in high risk cardiovascular patients.
Ezekiel Emanuel now contradicts this previously adopted notion. Now he wants it out. President Obama can probably take it out by executive order.
One can get a deeper an understanding of this man’s temperament when listening to these two interviews.
Obamacare’s architects are setting up Americans to be resolved to accept what the government will decide and provide. Americans will have no option to decide what medical care they can have and what physicians they can see. Non-elected bureaucrats will decide for us.
I implore Americans, congress, all of organized medicine and all physicians to say enough is enough. Obamacare should be repealed.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone
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